Email Marketing 101: 5 Ways to Avoid a Spam Filter

Nobody likes rejection. But unfortunately, your carefully crafted emails are rejected by spam filters and firewalls, sometimes without your knowledge. How can you ensure that your emails don’t “talk to the hand” and instead are greeted at your recipients’ inboxes with open arms? Here are five ways to avoid a spam filter:

Use a solid subject line

Your subject line is like a pick-up line; will that first line encourage your subscribers to listen to what you have to say? Try writing the subject line after you’ve written the email – and don’t speed through this process. Good subject lines are usually 5-8 words (35-40 characters) and should not contain any special characters or capital letters (those are big spam red flags!)

Avoid trigger words

Avoid using spam trigger words in your subject line and email body. Take these words out of your vocabulary if you want to avoid a spam filter:

Free

Click here

Read more

Guarantee

Call/act now

Spam

No obligation

Manage your lists

Don’t just hit ‘delete’ on those subscriber reports that your email marketing software sends you after sending an email. Pay attention to how many people opened, clicked, forwarded, and unsubscribed from your email. It’s important to remove emails from your list that bounced or could not be delivered. However, depending on the type of bounce, you may not always want to remove an email as it could possibly be delivered in the future.

Keep it short

We are bombarded with heaps of information daily. Not only do shorter emails increase readability, but they also reduce the chance of getting caught by the filter. Depending on the nature of the email, we recommend keeping the length around 200-300 characters to avoid a spam filter flag.

Test, test, and test again.

Send a draft preview of your email before sending out to your subscribers. Be sure to test the email on multiple email platforms (desktop, mobile, tablet) as well as various email providers (Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook).

The No. 1 Email Marketing No-No

One of the worst things you can do is send bulk emails from your personal email account, such as Gmail or Yahoo. If your email provider suspects that you are sending mass emails, your account could be frozen! Use email marketing software such as Constant Contact or MailChimp to send emails to your clients, customers, and prospects.

Make an Impact with Your Emails

Need help with email marketing? Give us a call – we’ll design a custom email template for your business and write the emails for you, so you don’t have to keep track of all these rules on how to avoid a spam filter. Or shoot us an email here (don’t worry; we will welcome your email with open arms!) Sarah Lane - Marketing Specialist